Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Not The Man You Think I Am

End of the pier, end of the bayYou tug my arm, and say: "Give in to lust, give up to lustOh heaven knows we'll soon be dust ..."Oh, I'm not the man you think I amI'm not the man you think I amAnd sorrow's native sonHe will not rise for anyoneAnd pretty girls make gravesOh ...I could have been wild and I could have been freeBut nature played this trick on meShe wants it nowAnd she will not waitBut she's too roughAnd I'm too delicate

- The Smiths'Pretty Girls Make Graves'

Somebody theorised recently that the reason I engage in a sort of 'freak' aesthetic, ie all tattoo and piercing and shaved head and face cutting and no bra, was that I was not confident enough with my own attractiveness to be a more usual kind of womanly entity. As if I my venture into less 'traditional' physical presentations was simply a way of deflecting some sort of faulty femininity. At least, that was how I interpreted the comment. And perhaps not very suprisingly, this bugged me more than a little!

Not sure exactly what bugged me though. I mean, the implication that 'you could look so pretty if you just wanted to and believed in yourself' was more than a little patronising. I do like to believe that I have moved on a little from being some greasy angsty teen hiding behind a long fringe and a baggy t-shirt *lol*. Also the implication that I identify as female, and am obviously not a butch woman, so therefore I must secretly harour an urge to be a girly-girl 24 hours a day and if only I'd just take off those steel caps and slip on some kitten heels I could self-actualise seemed a little odd. All of this just gets so confusing for me at times! I mean, I like to play with butches and bois and boys, but I very rarely particularly want to identify as femme. Is it my only option? I have had butch partners insist on my femme-ness to reaffirm their butch-ness, and femmes insist that because I don't want to fuck femmes I must secretly want to be one...

thanks! it just gets a little frustrating sometimes, especially when this sort of stuff comes from people you think have more imagination that that... still, i'm not perfect and have my own set of quirky (and surprisingly quite conservative at times) rules and boundaries that i live by and within *shrug*. we all cope how we cope, and heaven knows we all have much to cope with, but i think its important not to try to make yourself 'right' by attempting to prove how 'wrong' everyone else is :)